Silent Run

bed, she grabbed the duffel bag and pulled out Caitlyn’s baby blanket and bear. She ran the satin edges of the blanket through her fingers and closed her eyes. She imagined the crib and pictured Caitlyn’s sweet face. The image brought her warmth and made her smile.
    But then something changed.
    The room was different. There was pink wallpaper with big A-B-C letters. Lacy white curtains fluttered at the windows. Someone came into the room. She turned and saw Jake. He was wearing a suit and tie. On the floor in the doorway was his suitcase.
    He walked over and kissed her, a sweet, tender kiss on the lips.
    â€œI can’t believe I have to leave my girls for two weeks,” he said. “How will I live without you both?"
    â€œIt will be hard for all of us,” she said, her gaze lingering on his face. For some reason she wanted to memorize his features. She felt as if it were desperately important to do so. People always disappeared from her life. Things changed in an instant, and the good never lasted. She didn’t want to forget him. Not ever.
    â€œYou’ll marry me when I come back,” Jake said decisively. “It’s way past time for us to become an official family. No more excuses. Say yes."
    He made it sound so easy, when saying “yes” was anything but easy. “When you come back we’ll make plans."
    But as he walked out the room, she wondered if she could really go through with it. There was so much he didn’t know.
    Sarah’s eyes flew open as she realized that she’d finally seen Jake in her mind in the time when they’d been together. It must have been the day Jake had left for his business trip, perhaps the last time she’d seen him before she ran away. He’d left town believing she would marry him when he got back.
    Her heart thumped against her chest. How her departure must have hurt him. When he’d returned home with high hopes for their future together, he’d found an empty apartment stripped of all trace of Caitlyn and herself, and no explanation. Even after all this time she still couldn’t give him a reason.
    She wanted to scream in frustration.
    How could she have ruined such a terrific relationship?
    She lifted the baby blanket to her face and inhaled deeply. Caitlyn’s sweet scent still clung to the fabric, a mix of baby powder and baby. She would make everything right. She would find Caitlyn. She would get her memory back, and she would tell Jake why she’d left him, why she’d betrayed him.
    Then what? Would he forgive her? Would they all live happily ever after?
    Somehow she didn’t think so. She’d never believed in fairy tales.
    * * *
    Dylan stretched his arms over his head as he waited for his latest search screen to pop up. He’d been on the Internet for hours, but he was still no closer to locating Andy Hart. He suspected that if Andy were a computer genius, as Catherine had stated earlier, then he’d probably found ways to protect his personal information from appearing on the Internet. As for Teresa Meyers, he’d found a half dozen women with the name, but none of his follow-up calls had produced a likely candidate in terms of the right age or background.
    Catherine hadn’t offered much help, although she’d made him a delicious vegetarian pasta dish that he was sure had quadrupled his vegetable intake for the week, maybe the month. Since then she’d been puttering around the house, cleaning the kitchen, looking through the artwork done by her students, talking to her cats and her bird. Fortunately the bird didn’t seem inclined to talk back. He’d always thought talking birds were a little creepy. One woman he’d dated had a talking parrot who’d called him shithead every time he walked in the room. It hadn’t exactly set the mood.
    A flash of lightning lit up the room, followed shortly thereafter by a crack of thunder that rocked the house. The storm was loud, rain pounding the back deck, gale-force winds shaking the windows, waves crashing on the beach. The wild night did nothing to ease the mounting tension in his body. It frustrated the hell out of him to be stuck here while Jake and Sarah were running for their lives, but if he could find Andy Hart, then they’d be one step closer to locating Caitlyn.
    Glancing away from the window, he saw Catherine watching him from the kitchen. He was struck again by how pretty she was in a